In the era of globalization, translation of information especially in such a volatile market as finance and banking, plays a vital role in the development of each country. Nevertheless, there has been restricted number of researches focusing on translation of this field. Hence, the research was carried out for the purpose of revealing translation procedures, methods and strategies applied in translating finance and banking news. Fifteen pieces of news in English and their translated versions in Vietnamese collected from prestigious sources of news served as samples. They were carefully analyzed in the light of Newmark (1988)’s theory of translation procedures and methods at three levels: word, sentence and text respectively. The findings show that shift translation and through translation were among the most frequently used procedures at word level. Translation strategies at sentence level involved passive to active voice converting, shift translation and sentence splitting. Headlines, special parts of articles were chiefly translated by communicative method. Likewise, text was translated communicatively as a whole. It is suggested that translators should master the translation procedures and methods and flexibly utilize them appropriately to the readers. Moreover, regularly updating information about finance and banking news and the global economy is also highly recommended for better translation.
ABSTRACT In the era of globalization, translation of information especially in such a volatile market as finance and banking, plays a vital role in the development of each country. Nevertheless, there has been restricted number of researches focusing on translation of this field. Hence, the research was carried out for the purpose of revealing translation procedures, methods and strategies applied in translating finance and banking news. Fifteen pieces of news in English and their translated versions in Vietnamese collected from prestigious sources of news served as samples. They were carefully analyzed in the light of Newmark (1988)’s theory of translation procedures and methods at three levels: word, sentence and text respectively. The findings show that shift translation and through translation were among the most frequently used procedures at word level. Translation strategies at sentence level involved passive to active voice converting, shift translation and sentence splitting. Headlines, special parts of articles were chiefly translated by communicative method. Likewise, text was translated communicatively as a whole. It is suggested that translators should master the translation procedures and methods and flexibly utilize them appropriately to the readers. Moreover, regularly updating information about finance and banking news and the global economy is also highly recommended for better translation. i TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT i List of figures iv List of abbreviations v CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 1.1. Rationale 1 1.2. Significance of the study 2 1.3. Aims of the study 2 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 4 2.1 Translation 4 2.1.1 Definition of translation 4 2.1.2 Translation Methods 4 2.1.3 Translation procedures 7 2.2. News 8 2.2.1. Definition of news 8 2.2.2. Types of news 9 2.3 Business news, finance and banking news 11 2.3.1 Business news 11 2.3.2 Finance and banking news 11 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 13 3.1 Sampling 13 3.2 Data analysis instruments 13 ii 3.3 Data analysis procedure 14 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 15 4.1. Translation procedures at word-level 15 4.1.1. Translation procedures for translating Finance and banking terminology 15 4.1.2. Translation procedures for translating proper names 19 4.1.3. Translation procedures for translating acronyms 22 4.2. Translation strategies at sentence-level 23 4.3. Translation methods for translating news headlines 25 4.4. Translation methods at text-level 29 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 37 5.1. Summary of the study 37 5.2. Implications of the study 38 5.3. Strengths and weaknesses of the study 40 5.4. Suggestion for further studies 41 REFERENCES 42 APPENDIX A - DATA 44 APPENDIXES B – NEWS SAMPLES 56 Sample 1 - A Commission for the Fed's Next 100 Years 56 The central bank's centennial offers a valuable opportunity to rethink its mandate 56 By SETH LIPSKY 56 Sample 3 - Goldman Sachs Raises $1 Billion Selling Stake in ICBC 60 Shares Drop 61 Sample 4 - Rush to ATMs in Cyprus on EU bailout tax 62 iii A planned tax on Cyprus bank depositors as part of a European Union bailout is sending people rushing to ATMs to withdraw cash 62 Sample 5 - CORRECTED-Fitch says top 29 banks may need $566 bln 64 Thượng nghị sĩ Kevin Brady đang đề xuất bỏ bớt 1 chức năng của Fed đồng thời lập ra 1 ủy ban giám sát hoạt động của cơ quan này. 65 Sample 2 - Các ngân hàng châu Âu đối mặt với gia tăng minh bạch 68 Các "ông lớn" ngân hàng đang phải đối mặt với mối đe dọa của việc công khai thuế và lợi nhuận tại các nước trong Liên minh châu Âu 68 Sample 3 - Goldman Sachs muốn thoái vốn khỏi ngân hàng Trung Quốc 69 Đại gia tài chính Mỹ đang rao bán 1 tỷ USD cổ phiếu của Ngân hàng Công Thương Trung Quốc (ICBC). Trước đó, Goldman Sachs cùng các quỹ đã bốn lần bán cổ phiếu ICBC và thu về tổng cộng 7,76 tỷ USD 69 Sample 4 - Dân Síp ồ ạt rút tiền khỏi ngân hàng 70 Kế hoạch đánh thuế tiền gửi 9,9% áp dụng từ ngày mai là lý do khiến người dân Cộng hòa Síp kéo nhau tới ATM để rút tiền. 70 Sample 5 - Các ngân hàng cần 566 tỷ USD để đáp ứng Basel III 72 Theo Fitch, 29 nhà băng số 1 thế giới sẽ phải tăng tỷ lệ vốn lõi lên 9,5% 72 List of figures Figure 1: Translation procedures for translating Finance and banking terminology 15 Figure 2: Translation procedures for translating proper names 19 Figure 3: Translation procedures for translating acronyms 22 Figure 4: Translation methods for translating news headlines 26 iv List of abbreviations SL Source language TL Target language SLT Source language text TLT Target language text v CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1. Rationale The world that we are living has entered an era of globalization where almost all countries and economies are connected together in a particular way. Every change in a country exerts an effect on others. In such a condition, timely information or news plays increasingly momentous role in the development of an economy. In finance and banking area, where monetary policies of a nation change every year, exchange rates fluctuate every day and stock prices tend to be volatile every second, news is crucial. Accordingly, translation of financial and banking news from English (major source language of information) into Vietnamese requiring not only timeliness but also accuracy has become essential for Vietnam’s economy to keep pace with the development of the global economy. Recently, in the context of economic crisis, finance and banking has not only been an area seriously suffered from the depression, but also an effective key for economic recovery. These days, some of the most burning issues on media have been public debt, monetary reform and restructuring banking system. It is especially critical for those who work in finance and banking field to constantly update information of national and international changes. Once again, the importance of translating finance and banking news is emphasized. As a senior student of double major English – Finance and banking, the researcher has been equipped with background knowledge of economics in general as well as finance and banking in particular. Thus, it is interesting and useful for her to conduct a study called translation procedures, methods and strategies applied in English – Vietnamese translation of finance and banking news in the hope to identify appropriate strategies for translating financial and banking news. Moreover, on 1 carrying out this paper, the author also aspires to broaden background knowledge of her major and have a chance to practice translation skills. 1.2. Significance of the study For other students, the research was aimed at providing them with theoretical background in translation and translating finance and banking news. Moreover, there were some suggestions for further studies, which may be useful for them afterwards. With regard to other readers, especially those who were interested in finance and banking field, the researcher hoped to help them have an in-depth look into methods and procedures of translating finance and banking news and strategies to cope with difficult situations. 1.3. Aims of the study The main aim of the study is to conduct an investigation into the English – Vietnamese translation of financial and banking news on some of online newspapers in Vietnam majoring in finance and banking in order to: • Identify translation methods and procedures applied in translating financial and banking news. • Find out the most frequently used method and procedures. • Give some suggestions for financial and banking news translation strategies. The above objectives were satisfied on seeking for the answers of following questions: • What are translation methods and translation procedures applied for finance and banking news translation? 2 • Which methods and procedures are the most frequently used in finance and banking news translation? • What are translation strategies to deal with difficult situations in finance and banking news translation? 3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Translation 2.1.1 Definition of translation Documentary evidence of translation can be traced back for at least two millennia and the present day international communication depends heavily on it. However, there are still various definitions of translation. According to Dubois (1973) “translation is the expression in another language (TL) of what has been expressed in another (SL), preserving semantic and stylistic equivalences”. Similarly, Peter Newmark (1988) defined translation as “rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text”. Concerning with equivalent in translation, Hartman and Stork (1972) explained that “translation is the replacement of a representation of a text in one language by a representation of an equivalent text in a second language”. The aim of translation is to accurately retain grammatical and lexical features as well as the factual information of the original by seeking equivalent in the TL. In short, it seems that the above researchers shared the same point of view when focusing on the requirement that the content and style of the original text (SLT) should be preserved as far as possible in the translated text (TLT) 2.1.2 Translation Methods As mentioned, controversy has arisen among researchers about the definition of translation and also, methods of translation have been of no exception. Newmark (1988) provided eight main methods of translation. 4 SL TL Word-for-word translation In this translation method, the SL word order is preserved and the words translated singly by their most common meanings, out of context. Cultural words are translated literally. The main use of word-for-word translation is either to understand the mechanics of the source language or to construe a difficult text as a pre-translation process. Literal translation The characteristic of literal translation is that the SL grammatical constructions are conveyed to their nearest TL equivalents but the lexical words are again translated singly, out of context. As pre-translation process, this indicates the problem to be solved. Faithful translation Faithful translation attempts to reproduce the precise contextual meaning of the original within the constraints of the TL grammatical structure. It transfers the cultural words and preserves the degree of grammatical and lexical “abnormality” (derivation from the SL norms) in the translation. It attempts to be completely faithful to the intentions and the text realization of the SL writer. Semantic translation 5 Adaptation Free translation Idiomatic translation Communicative translation Semantic translation Faithful translation Literal translation Word for word translation [...]... differently in “Cyprus Parliament” - “Quốc hội Síp” and “EU Parliament” – “Nghị viện châu Âu” Another 20 example was a situation in which two different proper names in two separate countries had the same nature, so they had similar equivalent in Vietnamese They were “Bank of Isreal” – Ngân hàng Trung ương Isaeal” và “People Bank of China” – Ngân hàng Trung ương Trung Quốc” The reason for this translation was... Area - Khu vực Thương Mại Tự do ASEAN - Asian Development Bank (ADB) - Ngân hàng Phát triển châu Á (ADB) - European Commission - Ủy ban châu Âu Or national organizations and programs as follow - Industrial Commercial Bank of China - Ngân hàng Công Thương Trung Quốc (ICBC) - China Banking Regulatory Commission - Ủy ban Điều tiết Ngân hàng Trung Quốc - Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership - Hiệp... the acronyms were quite widely-known to the readership of the target language and sometimes they were transferred without creating any trouble for reader to understand Some examples were EU – “Liên minh châu Âu EU” and WB – Ngân hàng Thế giới (WB)” Another procedure in translating acronyms was transference For such frequently used acronyms as ATM and ASEAN, there was no need to clarify the meaning or... hôm Chủ Nhật và thuyết phục các nhà làm luật bỏ phiếu thông qua kế hoạch cứu trợ này Ông giải thích: "Vỡ nợ có thể buộc chúng ta từ bỏ đồng euro và phá giá tiền tệ" Or The UK's net sovereign debt was the equivalent of 68% of the country's annual economic output, or GDP, at the end of last year 24 Hiện tại, nợ ròng của Anh tương đương với 68% sản lượng kinh tế hàng năm của cả nước, hay GDP, vào cuối năm... translator encountered interesting but not too difficult for readers to understand collocation or technical terms For instance, in the headline “UK loses top AAA rating for the first time since 1978”, “AAA rating” was quite a familiar terminology in finance and banking As a result, the translator used the equivalent terminology in Vietnamese in the translation Anh mất hạng tín dụng AAA lần đầu tiên” Sometimes,... strict budget restrictions and led to big losses for bond holders Đối với các quốc gia khác trong 3 năm qua, như Hy Lạp hay Bồ Đào Nha, cơ quan này chỉ đòi hỏi thắt chặt ngân sách In this example, structure in the translated sentence was converted into an active sentence by changing the subject of the sentence Example of translating of sentence with “empty it” can be seen as followed It was the collapse... sentence with “empty it” can be seen as followed It was the collapse of the dollar in the 1970s that led to the establishment of the Gold Commission 23 Đồng bạc xanh sụp đổ trong những năm 1970 chính là nguyên nhân dẫn đến sự ra đời của Ủy ban vàng Besides, due to the differences in perspective of English and Vietnamese people, translators applied modulation procedures to make the translated versions... for translating it 4.1.2 Translation procedures for translating proper names Figure 2: Translation procedures for translating proper names Proper names was defined by Newmark in his book “Approaches to translation” as words “refers to persons, objects or processes peculiar to a single ethnic community” and have single references Usually, proper names are written with a capital letter In collecting proper... saved time in getting the sense of the headlines The next examples illustrated how the readers could benefit from the communicative translation method With regard to effectiveness of the message to be communicated, “Blackstone Group, Icahn said to submit proposals to Dell” can be taken as an example The headline literally meant “Tập đoàn Blackstone và Icahn nói rằng họ đã nộp bản chào mua chính thức công... equivalents in Vietnamese were put into separate column so that the analysis could be made easier At the next level – sentence, some typical structures were examined to find out the translation procedures applied when translating them Moreover, changes when translating sentences such as sentence splitting or information order were also taken into account At the highest level, the text was reviewed as a whole . 65 Sample 2 - Các ngân hàng châu Âu đối mặt với gia tăng minh bạch 68 Các "ông lớn" ngân hàng đang phải đối mặt với mối đe dọa của việc công khai thuế và lợi nhuận tại các nước trong Liên. khỏi ngân hàng Trung Quốc 69 Đại gia tài chính Mỹ đang rao bán 1 tỷ USD cổ phiếu của Ngân hàng Công Thương Trung Quốc (ICBC). Trước đó, Goldman Sachs cùng các quỹ đã bốn lần bán cổ phiếu ICBC và. ạt rút tiền khỏi ngân hàng 70 Kế hoạch đánh thuế tiền gửi 9,9% áp dụng từ ngày mai là lý do khiến người dân Cộng hòa Síp kéo nhau tới ATM để rút tiền. 70 Sample 5 - Các ngân hàng cần 566 tỷ USD